Jeph Loeb Is Killing The Avengers
July 3rd, 2008 by Brian Ries in Arts, Books
It’s arguable that Marvel Comics’ Ultimates series — a modern re-tool of the classic Avengers team — is the biggest breadwinner the company has seen in years. Not the actual comic books, really, since we know that print comics still don’t enjoy mainstream success. These days, the money is all at the movies.
First came a series of successful animated DVDs. Then, when the company took over production of their officially licensed movies with Iron Man and Hulk (2008), it announced that most of the next 5 years of big-screen comic features will be devoted to the slate of characters on the Ultimates team, with another Iron Man movie, a Captain America feature and a blow-out movie featuring the entire Avengers line-up. And, considering the quality of the first few Ultimates comics series — and the box-office success of Iron Man and the Hulk — it was a good move. Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury? That’s how he was drawn in the Ultimates years before these movies were mentioned.
But then why would you kill the goose that laid the golden egg? I’m not saying that Marvel is canceling the Ultimates comic. On the contrary, I wish they would.
Ultimates began in 2002 as part of Marvel’s wildly successful attempt to re-tell the stories of all their major heroes and villains, updated to the modern age and written by some of comic’s best known scribes. Mark Millar took control of the Avengers team, depicting their formation as the world’s premier superhero team with a boatload of pathos, humor and egregious action scenes. Thor is now a young Scandinavian anti-globalist whose belief in his own Norse thundergod status might be the result of acute psychological problems. Tony Stark (Iron Man) is rewound to his womanizing, alcoholic early days. Captain America, having been frozen in an iceberg since WWII, is a hopeless sap outraged at modern society. Hank Pym (Ant-Man/Giant-Man) beats his wife and the Hulk is a pitiful, horny scientist who destroys blocks of New York in a jealous rage when his ex-girlfriend goes on a date with Freddie Prinze, Jr.
Over the top? Sure, but it was a brilliant, entertaining soap-opera that presented obscenely powerful people doing the kinds of things you’d expect them to do — territory that Millar had already explored in DC/Wildstorm’s The Authority.
The third incarnation of the series — now on its fourth issue — saw a change in creative staff, with Jeph Loeb scripts and and Joe Madureiro art. The result has been a creative mess that treads on over-used superhero tropes combined with muddy, badly layed-out art that makes the confusing story even more muddled.
Loeb is perhaps best known as a writer/producer for hits like Lost, Smallville and Heroes, but before that he penned some fine Batman comics and a few other little gems. With Ultimates, he’s barely going through the motions. There are no less than a half-dozen different plots revolving through the four issues so far, all of which are scheduled to end with the next issue. He’s pulled out all the usual tricks: superhero teams on the same side constantly fighting each other, previously unknown superhero offspring/clones, robot duplicates, re-incarnation and a cast of characters that may number in the hundreds. While Millar set a stage and told a story, Loeb seems to merely throw characters, flashbacks and fights at the paper and hope it all turns out.
Joe Mad’s art isn’t as bad as the dialogue and story, but he’s also following on the coattails of Bryan Hitch, one of the most cinematically gifted comic artists of the past decade. While Hitch’s art was incredibly clean and expansive, Mad leans back to cartoony anatomy circa 1995 and oppressive lighting to try to maintain a dark and dingy mood. I guess if the story isn’t dark enough, just throw in a lot of shadows to compensate.
Thankfully, the mess of Ultimates Volume 3 will end with the next issue, but it might not be the end of our torment. Ultimates Volume 4 was slated to have Loeb back at the helm, this time with the child-like art of Superman-specialist and muscle obsessive Joe McGuinness providing the art. I guess I’ll have to go to the movies to get my hit of the Avengers/Ultimates crew in action.
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